CHAPTER NINE
LANE
I LIKED SADIE’S theory about living and dying being the same thing, and I wanted to believe it. But the thing was, although I might not have been dying, I wasn’t really living, either. I was doing what I’d always done: keeping my head down, working hard, planning for the future, and trying to ignore the present. Like Harbor, Latham was someplace to get through on the way to somewhere else.
I had an appointment with Dr. Barons on Sunday, and when he pulled up my vitals on his tablet, I could tell I was in trouble. He stared down at the screen, his expression dismayed.
“Lane, buddy, what’s going on here?” he asked.
“Nothing.”
I tried to look innocent, like I didn’t know what he was talking about, but I had a pretty good idea. I still wasn’t feeling that great, although it was nowhere near as bad as it had been on Saturday morning. I’d been so focused on keeping up with my schoolwork that I’d ignored my test scores—the ones I couldn’t study for. I’d overdone it, and now Dr. Barons was going to . . . what? Give me a strike for being sick?
“How are you feeling right now? On a scale of one to ten?”
Four, I thought.
“Two,” I said.
“I wish I believed that.” Dr. Barons frowned, and I shifted uncomfortably, hating that he could tell. “But you’ve lost weight, you’re running a fever half the time, and you’re barely sleeping.”
He said it like I was this grand disappointment, as though having a fever was as shameful as flunking an essay, or forgetting to do my homework. I’d read enough about TB to have its list of symptoms memorized: cough, fever, fatigue, chest pain, chills, loss of appetite, coughing up blood, weight loss.
“Right, but all of that’s normal,” I said. “It’s in the pamphlets or whatever.”
Dr. Barons shook his head.
“New symptoms are always worrying. You should be getting better at Latham, not worse.”
I hated that he was right, that I wasn’t okay, and this wasn’t some bullshit checkup. I didn’t want to be at Latham, but more than that, I didn’t want to need to be here.
I kept quiet, and Dr. Barons sighed.
“I don’t want to have to update your parents with news like this,” he said, “when earlier this week, it looked like things were on the mend.”
“They are,” I insisted. “I am.”
And then I fucking started coughing, right there in his office. It was the air-conditioning, cranked up so high that I was shivering even in my Stanford hoodie. I took out my handkerchief just in time, and Dr. Barons watched me, his face eerily calm, and his gaze unnervingly sharp. I didn’t cough up blood or sputum or anything, but it still sounded pretty rough.
“A decline like this worries me,” he said, taking a stylus out of his lab-coat pocket. “So what we’re going to do is make a couple of preventive changes. We’ll add you to the monitor list so a nurse will check on you during rest periods to see if you need anything. And I’ll put you down for a sleeping pill every night at eight.”
I stared at him in horror.
“You can’t do that!” I said.
This couldn’t be happening. I didn’t need some nurse hovering over me and forcing me into bed when it was still so early. I’d never have any privacy, or get anything done.
“I can fix it,” I promised. “Honestly. I didn’t realize it was that bad, or I would have eased up.”
“Exactly. You were just trying to keep up with the schedule, but it was too taxing. So we’ll make some accommodations and see if we can stave this off before—”
“That’s not what I meant!” I interrupted. He had it all wrong, thinking that Latham was too much for me to handle, that I’d gotten worse from a couple of bullshit classes and nature walks. I’d been planning to ask him about doing my AP work, but now that I had to admit what was really going on, I knew he’d never allow it.
So I confessed everything. How I’d been studying during the rest periods. That I wasn’t having trouble sleeping, I was staying up to work. And sure, I wasn’t feeling great, but I hadn’t realized it had gotten that bad. I just didn’t want to lose everything that I’d worked so hard for. I didn’t want Latham to ruin my perfectly planned-out future.
After I finished, Dr. Barons was quiet for a moment. I could feel his disapproval hovering there like a giant doom cloud. And then he sighed.
“Lane,” he said, “I don’t think you understand how serious this is. I’m not suggesting you slow down, I’m insisting that you stop. You’re not at a school, you’re in a medical facility, and you need to get with the program. Immediately.”
I’d never seen an adult look so angry at me, or so disappointed. I was actually being scolded—for studying. In the weirdness of Latham House, where it was easier to fail your meals than your classes, I’d gotten it wrong once again.
“Can I trust you to do that?” Dr. Barons pressed. “Or do I need to transfer you to the hospital wing for round-the-clock care? Because I’m going to be blunt here, Lane. If you keep going like this, that’s where you’ll wind up.”
It hit me then, as I sat on the crinkled paper of the exam table, how monumentally stupid I’d been. When I’d arrived at Latham, I hadn’t felt that sick, so I’d figured I wasn’t. And then I’d seen how easily that could change. I could either get better, or I could keep up with my old classes from my old life. I couldn’t do both.
Everyone else had known that. And I should have, too. I just hadn’t wanted to admit it, because admitting it meant acknowledging the possibility that the odds might not be in my favor. And that possibility was terrifying.
I wasn’t surrounded by sick kids, I was one of them.
“Yeah,” I said hollowly. “You can trust me.”
“Good.”
Dr. Barons smiled, and I tried to smile back, but I couldn’t think of anything to smile about.
“Is there any way we could forget about the sleeping pills and nurse checks?” I asked. “I’ll go to sleep at lights-out and everything. I swear.”
The doctor considered this, staring at my chart.
Please, I hoped, putting it out there into the universe for any deity that might be listening, I’ll do the stupid nature walks and yoga if he just grants me this one thing, if he lets me keep some small measure of dignity in this place.
“All right,” he said. “We’ll hold off for the time being. So long as I see an immediate improvement.”
“You will,” I promised, relieved.
“Fantastic.” Dr. Barons put away his stylus. “Oh, and Lane? Your hall nurse will come by shortly to collect any study materials that might be in your room.”
Of course she would. Because it wasn’t enough that I had to be here, now I had no escape. I was completely severed from everything.
So fine, I’d play by Dr. Barons’s rules. And once I got this TB thing under control and went home, I’d try to figure something out. But I’d rather get well enough to leave than stay sick enough for Dr. Barons to keep me here.
Just the thought of what it would mean to follow the schedule taped above my desk overwhelmed me. It would mean that just like everyone else, I was a patient here. One who was expected to endure an endless stretch of hours every afternoon, with no internet and no phone and no friends and nowhere to go and nothing to do except lie in bed and wait. I saw now why everyone crowded the TV room, and read graphic novels, and ransacked the DVD shelves, and saved their board games.
Classes ended before lunch, and the teachers didn’t assign homework. It was like Sadie had said—they wouldn’t dare to give us less than an A. I thought about Sadie’s group, with their contraband internet, their mystery trips to the woods, the way I never saw Nick or Charlie hanging around the TV lounge in their sweatpants.
When I’d first arrived, I’d thought they were troublemakers and that breaking the rules was wrong. But now, the idea of getting in trouble sounded appealing. Being yelled at for something that wasn’t on my
medical chart would be great. I was sick of being perfect, and maybe it was okay not to be, just for a while, just at Latham.
Maybe I could be a different version of myself here, one who didn’t feel enormously guilty for watching a movie on a school night. Someone with a hobby that did nothing for my résumé. Someone with friends, not just a friend group.
When Sadie had joined me in the gazebo and we’d sat there talking about everything, I’d been so lost in my own misery that it hadn’t quite dawned on me how amazing it felt for someone to understand, someone who was going through the same thing. Sadie had made Latham seem like a common enemy to be laughed about, and for the first time in months, I hadn’t felt panicked, and I hadn’t felt alone.
I’d gone about my life here all wrong. I saw that now. And I was determined to fix it.
HAVE YOU EVER driven somewhere with the GPS on and you decide to stop off for a coffee or something? The GPS keeps giving you directions to your destination, keeps making this rerouting noise at every turn, like you’ve done something wrong. And suddenly, instead of blindly following what your GPS says, you’re actively ignoring it, and getting angrier and angrier at the stupid machine for telling you to turn right.
I’d always thought of myself as the passenger in this scenario, but as Nurse Monica went through my belongings, taking away my binders of makeup assignments, and the books on my desk, and even my college brochures, I realized that I was the GPS.
I was the one who hadn’t understood about the detour, and who kept stubbornly trying to get back en route. I’d been rerouting at every turn, when the only thing to do was to stop protesting and go off course.
I HAD MY chance to fix things in French class on Tuesday. We were working silently at our desks again, and I kept glancing over at Sadie and her friends. I’d been trying to figure out how to approach them all morning, because I didn’t think I could stand another meal at Genevieve’s table.
Mr. Finnegan wasn’t in the room. He’d come in for about two seconds, written an assignment on the board, and instructed us to work silently until he returned. Which, if last week was any indication, would be right before class ended.
Back at Harbor, my honors French class had alternated between Socratic-method verb conjugations and sitting in the computer lab with headphones on, doing dictation. The whole thing was a nightmare.
Latham’s version of French, a catchall combined class for anyone with the basics under their belt, felt like a total joke in comparison. We’d moved on from hospital visits to office jobs. I couldn’t figure out why we were going over this stuff, other than to keep us busy. To top it all off, the textbook was ancient. There was an entire dialogue about sending a fax.
I flipped to the front of the book and took a look at the publication date. The book was a relic of the early nineties, stamped with a fancy seal proclaiming it PROPERTY OF THE WHITLEY PREPARATORY SCHOOL LIBRARY. I guessed someone had found a stack of them gathering dust and figured we could mend and make do.
The assignment was easy, and I finished pretty quickly. I wished I’d brought a book, or something else to work on, but it’s not like I had too many options after Nurse Monica had ransacked my room. So I sat there double- and triple-checking my answers and glancing over at Sadie.
Her desk was beneath a window, and the sunlight caught the gold in her hair. She had on this striped sweater, which had slipped off one shoulder, revealing the pale wing of her shoulder blade. She bent over her work, tapping her pencil against the textbook, this wonderful smile on her lips, like she was silently laughing at the assignment.
And then Nick leaned across the aisle and dropped a folded note onto her desk. She opened it warily, and they whispered about something. Nick leaned back in his chair with a smirk.
I watched as Sadie stood up, gathered her assignment, and walked to the front of the room. Everyone stopped what they were doing, unsure what was happening. And then Sadie put her things down on the teacher’s desk, next to Finnegan’s travel mug. She smoothed her hair, an expression on her face like she was about to pull the best prank in the history of Latham.
“Bonjour, classe,” she said, plucking a whiteboard marker from the tray and uncapping it. “Everyone take out a different colored pen and we’ll go over the assignment.”
We all looked around, confused. Only Nick and Charlie were laughing, like they knew the drill. Marina shook her head and put away her graphic novel with a grin.
Finnegan hadn’t mentioned anything about correcting the assignment. He still hadn’t handed back any of our work from last week’s classes.
“Exercise A. The answers are: le bureau, l’ordinateur, l’imprimante, l’agrafeuse, and le classeur,” Sadie went on, writing each answer on the board. “Does everyone have that?”
“Oui, madame,” Nick called, trying not to laugh.
Everyone still looked confused.
“What are you doing?” Genevieve asked.
“En français, Mademoiselle Reaser,” Sadie chided.
Genevieve muttered something under her breath and slid down in her seat, folding her arms.
“Exercise B,” Sadie went on. “We’ll do this one together. Let’s go down the rows, starting with Charlie. Please read the full sentence out loud.”
“Avez-vous pris des notes pendant la réunion?” Charlie read, sounding bored.
As everyone down the rows read their answers to the assignment, I tried to figure out Sadie’s game. We’d gone over the homework like this every day at my old school. It was just . . . normal. Just school.
Which must have been the point: to do something so normal that Mr. Finnegan would feel ridiculous getting upset over it. It was an interesting idea. A way to screw with the teacher that didn’t actually cause any trouble.
“Section C,” Sadie said. “Angela, I think it’s you?”
“J’avais une pièce de papier,” Angela recited.
“Bien.”
“Wait, that’s wrong,” I said, without thinking.
Everyone turned to stare at me.
“It’s une feuille de papier,” I said, trying to play it off. “It’s idiomatic.”
“Is it now?” Sadie grinned. “Well. I think we’ve got ourselves a new substitute teacher. Levez-vous.”
She motioned for me to come to the front of the room, and I shook my head. No way was I getting up there while we were supposed to be working quietly in our seats. What if Finnegan came back? What if everyone hated me and started yelling for me to shut up and sit down? The ways in which this could go wrong were endless.
But Sadie held out the marker, waiting. The whole room was watching. Even the kids who’d been gaming on their tablets. I wished I could take back my stupid grammar comment, and possibly disappear. But Sadie and her friends were staring at me, and I realized with a sudden jolt that this was it. My chance to join their rebellion. My way into their circle. I’d been hoping for something more subtle, like making witty conversation in the lunch line, possibly about the milk cartons, but too late now.
So I sighed and stood up, hoping I wouldn’t regret it.
“Classe, say bonjour to substitute teacher Lane.” Sadie pressed the marker into my hand with a smile.
“Bonjour, Lane,” Sadie’s friends called back, enjoying themselves immensely.
And then she went back to her seat and left me there.
I stared down at the textbook that was old enough to buy beer, trying to muster my nerve. I never did this sort of thing. I volunteered to pass back exam booklets, and I went to school sick so I wouldn’t lose out on the perfect attendance award. I followed the rules because that was why rules existed, to be followed.
At least, that’s what I’d always believed. And now I was standing at the front of the room, not because the teacher wanted me to, but because Sadie had dared me. Because it was worth getting in trouble if it meant I didn’t have to sit at Genevieve’s table anymore.
There was no such thing as an honor roll here, and no clubs that the teachers
liked best. So I set my textbook on the desk and did an impression of my dad.
I’d been stuck in his history class in the ninth grade, along with the other kids in the honors program, who couldn’t stand him. He was strict, and a tough grader, and he didn’t let anyone pee, even though his class was right after lunch. But mostly, he did this thing where he hit the board with the marker to stress his point, making eye contact with a specific student while he did it. No one whispered in his class. He was that terrifying.
“Répétez, plus vite,” I insisted, smacking the board with the marker and glaring at Angela.
She giggled nervously and gave the correct answer.
“Exactement,” I said coldly, writing it down.
Angela sank down in her seat, pouting, and Genevieve shot her a sympathetic look. Sadie and her friends were in hysterics. Some of the other students were grinning. I went on, encouraged, and somehow managed not to break character. In middle school, I’d taken a drama class where we played improv games and acted out two-page scenes. I’d wanted to sign up again in high school, but it would have ruined my class rank if I didn’t take a weighted elective, so I’d picked up AP Art History instead.
I’d forgotten how much I enjoyed stuff like this, how fun it was to step outside myself. I was on the second-to-last question when the laughter went totally quiet. Something was wrong, I could feel it. I turned.
Finnegan stood in the doorway, staring at me, unsure what was going on. And to tell you the truth, I hardly knew, either.
It wasn’t like the room was in chaos or anything. Far from it. The board was filled with neatly numbered corrections, and everyone was in their seats, quietly marking their answers, while I ran the class like Professor Snape was my spirit animal.
“Qu’est-ce qui se passe là?” Finnegan demanded.
“Rien,” I said, putting down the marker. “Sorry.”
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